


Star Wars: Fate/Zero

by Ma_Kir



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fate/ Fusion, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Crossover, Fourth Holy Grail War, Gen, Lothal, World Between Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:18:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ma_Kir/pseuds/Ma_Kir
Summary: Long, long ago in a galaxy, far, far away seven adepts and seven spirits of myth and legend fight to access the ancient power known as the World Between Worlds: each for their goals, each for their own agenda.Welcome, friends, to Star Wars: Fate/Zero:  an experimental contained miniseries for May the Fourth. And may it also be with you.





	1. Chapter 1

In a secret stronghold on Hoth, Emiya Kiritsugu and Irisviel von Einzbern kneel before the altar as Jubstacheit von Einzbern looks on. The Einzbern Clan, through their re-adaptation of Force alchemy after the last Purge so many centuries ago, have gained the resources to reconstruct this chapel that was once at home to the Church of the Force.

Kiritsugu knows all too well, as the Adept Slayer, just how many pretty credits it must have cost the Old Man and the alchemical constructs that he loosely calls a family. He's aware that the Old Man isn't entirely pleased even with this. Relics of the actual Jedi Temples, especially the one that once existed on Coruscant, are hard to come by after everything that happened. Nevertheless, though Kiritsugu wasn't particularly keen on it, the Einzbern and found the relic they'd been looking for.

Iri had been so excited. They were going to summon Saber. No, not just any Saber. They were going to summon a Jedi: an ascended spirit of the most powerful of their lost kind.

The last Jedi. 

The ruined piece of what was a lightsaber hilt, its kyber crystal still relatively intact, sings through the Force in a circle of midichlorian-rich blood. Even as Kiritsugu's midichlorians, the medium through which the Force -- the life energy field of the galaxy -- could be harnessed by an individual sing in response to the power being activated -- to the World Between Worlds, or so the elder Einzbern told them -- he has his doubts. The historical record, especially on the HoloNet and in former ancient Imperial Records, never mind the remnants of the Jedi Archives, is spotty at best. No one really knows who the last Jedi was, though many believe it to be Luke Skywalker. 

The Adept Slayer sighs inwardly as he continues to chant. He almost feels bad for telling his wife those stories about a man who, supposedly, single-handedly brought down the First Galactic Empire, and sewed the seeds of the destruction of the First Order. Luke Skywalker sounded like a man of principle: a philosopher, and seer. Kiritsugu, even as an Adept in the scarcest sense of the word as he had been forced to kill his own father when he turned to the Dark Side, before he could complete his training, knows enough about Jedi philosophy or its remnants to know that they will probably not be a good match. Personally, Kiritsugu would have preferred Assassin: some low level, no name, or lost to history Legendary Spirit that would target the other Masters alongside him and eliminate them with surgical and reliable precision: beings that would just follow orders. No more, no less.

Still, looking at the awe in Irisviel's eyes and feeling the Force singing through him in a way he had never felt before, Kiritsugu pushes these thoughts aside. He has his slugthrowers, thermal detonators, sonic weapons, a flamethrower, and the dregs of his own Family's attempts to create a temporal field with the Force and their bloodline. Just enough to deal with any other Adepts who are Masters. He even has some lightsaber resistant alloy, bought at heavy cost. Between him, and Maiya, and the Spirit of Luke Skywalker guarding his wife, they will win this War. The Old Man wants to resurrect his Clan's supposed connection to the Ones, to be able to create life, space and time, as their ancestors were supposedly capable but Kiritsugu will access the World Between Worlds and use its power to bring eternal peace to this galaxy.

His heart aches despite the power thrumming through him. Unfortunately, the Einzbern had read the Prophecy of the Chosen One, or at least one aspect of it that remained. Irisviel is something of a crucible, a sentient Force-sensitive artifact or vergence to manifest the portal to the World Between Worlds. It had something to do with creating the Son of Suns, or some other metaphor derived from an ancient prophecy that birthed the destroyer of the Sith and the one to bring Balance to the Force. But that is just what it is: metaphor. It probably isn't even what the ancient Jedi believed it to be. The Einzbern possess their own perspective and plan. And Kiritsugu knows, as does Iri, that if they fail and the portal to the World Between Worlds doesn't manifest, their daughter will be the next "Vessel of the Chosen One": the one to harness the World Between Worlds.

A shape appears in the centre of the circle, on this node on top of a Force nexus possessed by the Clan. As the light, such Light, fades out of Kiritsugu's vision .... He senses an incredible amount of power. Irisviel gasps. Even Kiritsugu can barely keep his mouth from hanging open. 

A young girl, in torn desert clothing is crouched on the ground. In one hand, she holds a staff. At first, amongst other things, Kiritsugu thinks he summoned Caster by accident. But then he sees her other hand. She is holding it out to him. It is holding an object. Upon closer examination, Kiritsugu realizes she is holding the other half to the old and shattered lightsaber cylinder. 

The girl looks up. She has brown eyes, matching her hair. There is a sad smile on her face, but also something in eyes that wars between fear and hope. She holds her part of the lightsaber towards him and, for the first time in his whole life, Kiritsugu isn't exactly sure what he is supposed to do next. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you didn't see this one coming, though some of you probably did. I was originally thinking about making Saber Obi-Wan Kenobi or actually Luke Skywalker. But I like this idea more as it really throws Kiritsugu off his game, like King Arthur once did. And their views will definitely not be compatible, although they are all too eerily paralleled in some ways. Hope is a dangerous thing.


	2. Chapter 2

Matou Kariya hates every moment being back on Malachor. The Dark Side permeates everything here on this ancient battle site between the Jedi and the Sith. He tried not to learn too much of his Clan's lore before he fled, so many years back, to become a holographer and journalist. This place, his Clan, its Head and his supposed "father" Matou Zouken -- who had been ancient even when he was young -- fill him with anger. 

And that is what the old monstrosity counts on.

The Crest Worms, creations of Makiri alchemy adapted from that of the ancient Sith -- writhe throughout his body. Kariya had left his abomination of a "Family" before he had learned the proper techniques of the Force and adapted his midichlorians to the burning power of its full aspect. He wanted to avoid this fate, remembering the legends of the Jedi, of the Force, and how the Dark Side eventually degrades and twists its practitioners into monsters like Zouken, or worse. He knows that the Matou, once the Makiri before their experiments into midichlorian manipulation and their attempted re-creations of the work of their patron saint, the obscure Darth Plagueis the Wise, decimated their natural biological connection to the Force. As such, Kariya himself -- aside from his bitter, broken, mediocre brother drowning his sorrows after the "harvesting" of his wife -- was the only hereditary Matou in recent history to be able to tap into the Force.

And he threw all of that aside, to get away from the taint of the Dark Side, the half-remembered memory of his brother's wife being consumed by Zouken's alchemical mutations when she failed to deliver a Force-sensitive heir to the Clan, and to save ...

To save _her_. 

And then, just when he thought he got away from this place -- built on the ruins of an obliterated Sith Temple and lost superweapon, the reason the former Makiri came here in their futile attempt to resurrect their power with its nexus -- the Force revealed itself to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's true. Kariya, already disgusted with his Clan, had a vision: that if he helped his Clan, he would doom the ones he loved to degradation and destruction. He couldn't do that to Aoi and any children she might have. And so he left. And he never wondered, then, why Zouken let him go so easily ...

Until now.

Now he chants the ancient words. He doesn't try to ignore the truth of it: the disease he has let into his body and the torture of Zouken's Force lightning and manipulation that he calls "training." It has altered his midichlorians. At best, Kariya knows he has a year: though probably a whole lot less. The Makiri, become the Matou, had their own version of the Prophecy of the Chosen One. They adapted its ideology to the women of their Clan, whoever was unfortunate to become a part of it. They converted female biology into Vessels to supposedly create stronger heirs, or at least incubators for their Worm constructs. They became so proficient at this that they learned how to alter the bodies of others that weren't of their bloodline, to teach them their techniques, to carve it into their bodies, to make their bodies and souls remember ... 

Like Sakura.

Love and rage burn inside of Matou Kariya as he thinks of Sakura writhing in that worm pit being altered, making his time within it -- his agony experiencing it -- pale in comparison. As he continues his chant, calling on the Dark Side of the Force to complete the summoning ritual -- Zouken cackling behind him -- Kariya curses him, and Tohsaka Tokiomi, and the Force, and himself as a form warps and twists into the circle made with Matou alchemical blood and human sacrifice. 

Kariya coughs up blood as the full weight of the presence drains his augmented power, consuming it like a black hole. The catalyst in the centre of the circle, a melted, crumbling mask from the darkest of folktales and horror stories, dissolves as the figure rises. Through his agony, Kariya focuses on the events that have betrayed him, and those he loves, but on his own power -- on that need to overcome -- on making sure that Sakura doesn't become another "Vessel of the Chosen One" as he asserts his Master's bond with his Legendary Spirit. 

As the power of the dark nexus clears for a time, he sees the figure for what it is. It is clothed in black. It has a dark cloak and robes. It is bowing now, its gloved hands clenched into fists, and its masked head inclined downwards. Then, slowly, it rises to its feet. Kariya faintly hears Zouken mocking him, behind his back, telling him that he was a failure, that even with all his determination he had not been able to summon the dread Darth Vader back from the depths of Chaos. But as he looks into the silver inlaid black visor of his Servant, of Berserker, he can feel the Light and Dark warring inside of the other: the need for order at all costs, revenge for being wronged, and a ... focus on a girl: lost like him, vulnerable to the tempests of the Force's whimsy. 

Kariya detests Adepts, more than he does himself. But in the heart of his Berserker, a being that wants to destroy the past -- to kill it -- even as he watches the other take out a cross-guard hilt and ignite it, revealing crackling, unstable prongs of pure crimson energy, Kariya looks at his own instability, his own unstable mutations, and the conflict of sentiment and vengeance, a need to eliminate all the evils of the past, of obsolete and barbaric traditions, of an intrinsic feeling of betrayal, and knows that the power is all about struggle and pain -- and its eventual conclusion. 

He promised Zouken the World Between Worlds in exchange for Sakura's freedom -- to let the ancient thing have a proper immortality that their Clan's alchemy could not grant as he continues to rot -- but Kariya has other plans now. Even if the old man suspects it, through the extensions of his biological matter through him, he senses his Servant's greater power blocking it out. Kariya will find the portal, he will make, and he and his Servant will change the past. They will obliterate its mistakes and liberate the galaxy from weakness, theirs and its own. Sakura will be free. She and her sister, and her mother will have never been prisoners to begin with. There will be no more Adepts. 

The chains of the galaxy will be broken. Kariya just has to remember that love and hate are both sides of the same credit chip. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to lie. I almost -- almost -- made Berserker Darth Vader. It would have actually complemented Kariya and his motivations well. But this Berserker ... while not exactly the same, also at one point wanted to protect or help a girl for different reasons. Both he and Kariya were betrayed in different ways, both seduced by power perhaps by the best of intentions, and both having terrible tempers and bouts of rage. And it is possible that these sentiments can bleed over.
> 
> Who knows, I might use Darth Vader ... in another story, at some point. I know of someone who needs him a lot more.


	3. Chapter 3

Caster lets the boy finish with yet another family.

He shakes his head under his cowl. The Legendary Spirit had a feeling he would find his way back to Lothal, the centre of The War Between Worlds as the three primitive Families called this Ritual. In fact, he had foreseen it even if -- at the time right before his fall into that fateful plasma -- it hadn't made sense out of context. These ... _children_. 

The Servant, as if anyone else would dare to call him that, certainly not when he had been manifest so many centuries ago, cackles to himself. These Adepts, as they call themselves, are half-trained at best. Even his acolytes, his Inquisitors, could have made short work of most of them. And that isn't even mentioning what his Apprentices, particularly one of them, were capable of doing at their height ...

Caster snarls under his cowl, his gnarled hands clenching under his sleeves and lets the pure, unadulterated hatred of the Dark Side flow through him. At the same time, a gloating, twisted pleasure -- the promise of an absolute triumph -- makes the sensations within him even more heady. It's true. He had been foiled all those years ago by his treacherous Apprentice, but he had already lost one opportunity: perhaps even two if one counted the debacle on Lothal itself. But in a way, his former servant -- a true Servant -- had given him an opportunity with which he couldn't have dreamed. A long time ago, Caster had a sense of a great darkness beyond the Outer Rim, from the Unknown Regions themselves. It called to him, then. He suspects that it calls to everyone on some level, even to his former Apprentice who just didn't know what it was, or where it came from. It screams in the blood, demanding slaughter, control, power ... An absolute command of the life and death of all living things that made up the Force itself. 

At the time, he created a few outposts -- on Jakku and the like -- to detect more of this phenomenon. And when he'd heard about the Temple on Lothal, read and gleaned the legends of the Ones, the Anchorites and of what it was supposedly capable, he knew this would have been a key to understanding it. Unfortunately, the portal had been destroyed. He knows this intimately, a sense of frustration and fury that still builds within him to this very day. 

But due to his corporeal destruction and banishment to Chaos, Caster now has another opportunity. The attempts of the Three Clans, while crude, seem to be enough. With the life forces of the other ... _Servants_ , along with the utilization of Lothal's Force nexus in conjunction with those on other worlds, and their grasp of Force alchemy, the portal can be restored. 

And with it, ultimate power.

His partial resurrection, the call of his essence from the World Between Worlds, as imperfect as it is -- reducing a great deal of his former glory -- is proof of this. As for the rest of it ... Caster isn't sure how or why the boy had been able to summon him. A simple serial killer, a murderer for pleasure, he had some Force-sensitivity in his bloodline. Caster may have chalked it up to the random convergence of midichlorians in certain individuals that happened in his time, and probably in others, but his crude and somewhat inefficient knowledge of Sith magic, or some derivative suggests otherwise: perhaps a lost and misguided bloodline that squandered their already mediocre potential until only this degenerate psychopath was left. 

But Caster is fine with this. He just has to indulge the boy's appetites for a time. It isn't anything he isn't used to. Even in his own youth, Caster enjoyed playing with the lives of others, and walking away after the experiences: as was his right. The boy is a beast, but he can already influence him. It doesn't even take mental domination, though it is easy enough to do so. He just has to show the boy new and novel ways to kill and torment other sentient lives. And it isn't as though Caster isn't getting anything out of these excursions: as controlled as he makes them. 

Aside from the fact that Caster feasts on all the life energy that their torture and eventual extinguishment gain him, Caster has to admit that he enjoys causing suffering in lesser life forms once again. The boy can be moulded. He has seen that much already, but at best Ryuunosuke Uryuu is a mere acolyte. Hardly a _Master_. At the moment, he has influenced his mind enough to keep a lower profile, and to let Caster either dispose of all evidence ... or utilize the remnants for his own experiments. He suspects that there might be a way to use this power to allow him to access the World Between Worlds without the destruction of the other Servants: to let him gain control over the portal.

However, the destruction of the other Servants will only hasten his victory. And it isn't as though Caster doesn't have other means to win. This isn't the first War he has hijacked, or created. He is already sending servants and information to other parties, leading them to other Servants: even slowly outlining the depredations of his own ... acolyte when, eventually, he has no further use for him. 

But as much as Caster can feed off of other life forces without a ... living anchor, he is still weighing his options. He senses another dark presence. Not the Legendary Spirit on Malachor that wants to use the World Between Worlds to allow his precious Grandfather to take over the Galaxy back in his time, or the girl on Hoth to find out who her parents are, what her purpose is, or to save the galaxy from the destruction she ultimately failed to prevent. No. This darkness is on Lothal. It is from a human being. It is what the boy has pretensions of being, except right now it is shackled, chained in dogma and self-loathing, and a level of cognitive dissonance that will be so very entertaining to bridge with the best kind of mental gymnastics to truth. 

To the power of the Dark Side. 

This time, Caster doesn't hide his laughter. The boy, who he does not call Master -- as he has never called _anyone_ Master -- cheers him on. And while Caster admits he might somewhat miss the boy once his usefulness is at an end, from his sheer enthusiasm alone, he has other plans. 

The Force has called him back to this plane, to glory. He can see this.

It is his destiny. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun. I don't think I need to explain who this Servant -- sorry, this Legendary Spirit is -- as he is fairly clear. Even beyond death, his game of dejarik continues.


	4. Chapter 4

Kotomine Kirei watches as CT-7567 salutes him, and goes off to follow orders. He is aware that his father, a pastor of the Church of the Force just watched his summoning: as is his Master, the Adept Tohsaka Tokiomi and his own Servant more distantly. It is just as well. According to what is left of the Imperial Archives, Kotomine's Servant would not get along with his teacher's in any way. 

In fact, it's best that CT-7567 never know that Kotomine is actually working with his former teacher to allow the latter to secure the World Between Worlds. It's less to do with Tokiomi's goal: the orthodox need to become One with the Force beyond the euphemism for death and thereby gain ascendancy into a Force spirit. Rather, it has to do with their plan that involves the defeat -- the physical death -- one of CT-7567's brothers by Archer's hands in order to make it look like Kotomine has lost the War Between Worlds earlier on and claim sanctuary at Lothal's chapel where his father acts as the Ritual Overseer. Kotomine could compel CT-7567 and, hence, his brothers to obey his will at all costs but it will definitely cost him some of his concentration through the Force to continuously mind-trick his Servant. 

No, it is just better that this information is on a need to know basis: that Kotomine sacrifice that soldier, tell his Servant that they are pretending to be defeated, so that they can surround the enemy and eliminate them when they are caught unawares. 

Kotomine knows that is father is pleased with the summoning. According to surviving records, the Grand Army of the Republic -- the ARC Troopers or Advanced Recon Commandos -- had been the most efficient fighting force in the history of the galaxy. A part of Kotomine wonders why, when they took so much time to find the remainder of their kit -- that one streaked helmet and found in a Coruscanti Museum of War -- just why they didn't take any DNA they could find off of it and clone him again. But he knows the logistics. The original Grand Army of clone troopers, made of Jango Fett's genetic material took the legendary clone-masters of Kamino a decade to gestate, train, arm, and ready. For all Tohsaka Tokiomi and his Clan possess in terms of harvesting and imbuing kyber crystals -- in their attempt to recreate the lightsabers of old with their bloodline's Force techniques -- they were not willing to spend that many credits: especially on a world that had been obscure and thought lost even before the mythic Clone Wars. 

Even so, he can see why his father and the rest of the Church of the Force might see his summoning of the CT-7567 to be an achievement. He was, after all, the captain of the ordained Chosen One, and his brethren -- all sharing the same face -- had served the Jedi Order that the Church so venerated during a dark time in the history of the galaxy. Of course, his ardent brothers, sisters, and siblings of the Church -- even with its general monopoly over the material remnants and relics of the Jedi Order -- sometimes forget that these same clones turned on, and eliminated their Jedi Generals by a subliminal command, giving rise to the First Galactic Empire.

Perhaps that is why Kotomine had been able to summon CT-7567 and his brothers collectively as Assassin. While CT-7567 claims he had never cut down his General, or any other Jedi -- even serving with the legendary Rebellion against the Empire -- it doesn't particularly matter to Kotomine. Assassin, and his brothers -- who were made from, and ultimately acted for the most part as one person -- move out, his mental suggestion having them proclaim, "Good soldiers follow orders." They were made to obey, they were born to fight, and created to die. What is more, through their knowledge of Jedi fighting techniques and Mandalorian culture, they have armour, weapons, and tactics as well as covert training to be able to scout, recon, surround, and ambush other Force Adepts such as the Masters in this Ritual: and terminate them. If the mythic Jedi Knights of old, long gone, couldn't defeat the Grand Army and, in particular, the 501st Legion that Kotomine somehow commands, the Masters in the War have no chance. 

A part of Kotomine supposes he should feel bad about disposing of their lives. Indeed, CT-7567 even told him they all had names for all they originate from one person. His training in the Force tells him that they are all different individuals, while on a psychic level he can sense the strange echo that their genetics -- their blood -- makes being copies of one organism. The ancient Jedi never used cloning in their medical procedures as cloning is an aberration of the Living Force. Even still, though Kotomine knows they are all people, he doesn't find that he particularly cares. He doesn't even feel anything when he recalls the clone captain of the 501st, now a living legend, taking his hand and calling him General: as if he were some kind of Jedi Knight.

When his medical scans came in after the salvaging of the detection blood-testing technology, and the Church discovered that Kotomine was one of the few of their members with a high midichlorian count, he felt no particular joy. In fact, he felt no serenity or passion. He simply followed the tenets of the Church, which was to reconstruct and eventually return the Jedi Order to the galaxy: and restore the Balance. It was something that had been attempted several times throughout the centuries with varying results. 

The truth is, deep down, Kotomine doesn't feel filial love to his Pastor father. He doesn't feel a sense of camaraderie or friendship with his brothers, sisters, and siblings, or even with the clone troopers he summoned from the rudimentary portal that the Ritual creates through the Force, though he can see how it would be so easy for others to do so: to love, and to want to protect this ... family. Kotomine didn't even feel anything when his wife died, or his child being born and eventually raised by her parents associated with the Church. 

He wishes his wife, sick with inherent genetic disorders that the finest physicians and even Adepts friendly to the Church and the Light Side of the Force, hadn't died. She said he did feel something. He did feel love. He wishes he could have taken her, held her in his hands, surrounding her tight, looking her in her eyes as she struggled for breath and --

Kotomine feels utter self-disgust, putting up his shields before any other Adept can sense his thoughts or emotions. He has learned to make excellent shields, even against himself. The Tohsaka Clan are a family of Force Adepts closely aligned with the interests of the Church due to their experiments with the Living Force and kyber crystals as being integral to another attempt at the Jedi Order's resurrection. Tokiomi took Kotomine under his wing, teaching him the ways of the Force in a way the Church could not: not teaching him the specific techniques of his bloodline, but the basics of it: furthering his martial arts training beyond Teräs Käsi, beyond his mercenary and military training, into mind techniques, telekinesis, and incorporating precognition into reflexes. Some in the Church think of Kotomine as the next in a possible generation of Jedi Knights. 

Perhaps Kotomine's own father hopes that when Tokiomi ascends into a Force spirit he will gain enlightenment from the World Between Worlds and be able to teach his son and other prospectives the ways of the Jedi: having communion with them beyond the Netherworld of the Force with which they have always so desperately sought to communicate.

But Kotomine has no use for the World Between Worlds. There is nothing in the past, present, or future -- or alternative timelines -- that he wants. He doesn't even desire ultimate knowledge or wisdom. He doesn't know the Force chose him to have these abilities, or to chose to commune with him -- to call him into this War. Even so, Kotomine wonders, deep down, about something else. 

If he doesn't feel a call to the Light, what is his purpose? 

Kotomine ponders this for a while, even as he receives a comm signal from his Master. In the meantime, he will do as he is instructed. 

Good soldiers follow orders, after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wondered if I could or should incorporate the 501st into this strange hybrid world. Then I wondered what Master they would serve. I actually thought about giving them to Tokiomi, and I pondered the wisdom of making them collectively Assassin. You can see their similarities and differences with the canon ones of Zero. Nevertheless, I like the dynamic here. And I think next, I will introduce Tokiomi's Servant.
> 
> ETA: I George Lucased a little bit of this chapter after talking to a friend of mine who read this miniseries and realizing I had a good idea for a future story based on this part. Essentially, I retconned it so that Kotomine and Tokiomi are planning to sacrifice one clone trooper instead of a squad or a number of them to Archer. Actually, like George Lucas would probably say, I restored it to the way it was supposed to be. Originally, I had it as one soldier instead of several. That works out just fine for me either way.
> 
> And no, there will not be anymore weird CGI additions or ... Jar Jar Binks as Berserker ... though that would actually be hilarious in a sad sort of way. Until next time.


	5. Chapter 5

Tohsaka Tokiomi sits in his Manse on Lothal -- the site of this Ritual -- and waits. Archer engages him in idle conversation, getting a further read on the latest man that he calls Master. Compared to his previous Masters, one ancient and benevolent, and yet utterly obtuse, and the latter cunning, brilliant, and utterly cruel Tohsaka is rather ... plain, even boorish by comparison. 

Still, Archer finds this all somewhat amusing, if he is going to be honest with himself. The fact that their ingenious, if somewhat crude Ritual -- stitched together from Sith rites and the Will of the Force as well as a catalyst in the form of a tattered piece of his armour weave cape, a sympathetic rite worthy of a Nightsister -- summoned him as an Archer of all things is just the start of it. He supposes it makes sense as he calls on the Force and juggles a wide variety of objects in the room. He can't help but indulge his ... Master. It reminds him of the Temple and entertaining all of those Younglings and Padawans, and not a few of the Knights and Masters with his lessons in telekinetics. Archer has to admit he would have made a better Saber, perhaps even a modest Caster when all is said and done but he can handle this. He has taken on quite a few roles in his last existence.

Diplomat. Politician. Statesman. Philosopher. Idealist. Poet. Scholar. Teacher. Rhetorician. Speaker. Firebrand. Exile. Aristocrat. Swordsman. Jedi Master. Councillor. Dark Lord of the Sith.

Student.

Pawn.

Archer shakes his head as he casually sips some of the fine vintage that his host has provided, complimenting him on his taste. He is sincere. Tohsaka Tokiomi and his Clan have preserved a fine brew. Alderaanian wine ... Given what happened to that world, he is amazed some of his favourite beverage still exists, never mind is still made. Tokiomi also possesses a curious collection of artifacts, making Archer actually miss his Solar sailer. It is almost a pity the Geonosians also are all but extinct now, their planet rendered lifeless by the power that Archer had helped to create after his betrayal, and demise. He can understand, of course. The Geonosians had grown too familiar with the workings of mechanisms and potentially kyber crystals for the Ultimate Weapon.

He has to admit to himself, looking at his Master's Force techniques intrigue him. The Jedi have been long gone, with various resurgences not unlike the Sith of old, but almost always diminishing: always forgetting the lessons of the past. Lightsaber crafting has become practically a lost art. The artisan, the warrior, and the spiritual parts of Archer actually feel a pang of regret at that fact. He recalls all of the katas, the meditation rituals, the hunt for the kyber crystals on Illum, the slaying of the terentateks, the sparring salons, the Holocrons, and the crafting of the weapons ... All of that culture was gone, or had gone through different phases of renaissance and dark age ...

And a lot of it had been thanks to him, and his efforts before and after his own murder.

But Tokiomi is a fascinating specimen. His Clan are Force Adepts. There appear to be many more Adepts in this time compared to his own for obvious reasons, and he is somewhat amazed that a larger more monolithic organization hasn't attempted to consolidate them and their teachings, while weeding out or strictly controlling those that there were a threat to galactic order. Still, according to some legends that is how the Jedi Order began before supposedly forming on Ahch-To, Tython, Jedha, Ossus or whatever the historians bickered about.  

Perhaps when they won this War Between Worlds, Archer would finally find the answer. 

Archer's goals are fairly simple and actually, so far, align with his Master's. He wants order. He wants to create an Order of Adepts, for lack of a better word, that will shepherd the galaxy into a new age: where conflict can be harnessed constructively, and peace maintained by those who are superior to those with a smaller amount of midichlorians. The rabble cannot be expected to govern themselves well without disorder or manipulation, after all. It had been his dream, to change the Jedi Order that, for all its flaws still had considerable resources and culture, into a Sith Army that would outlast Archer and create an eternal Golden Age of martial art, scholarship, expansion, and power. 

The Church of the Force, a quaint institution that Archer vaguely recalls as a small cult in the time of the Republic, venerates the Jedi: and unfortunately many of their flaws. The Tohsaka Clan is one of those few Adepts that have affiliated themselves with the Church and its following in hopes of accessing Jedi lore. Archer has seen Kotomine Risei, and while he can see the leverage and breathing and levelness of the man -- a born martial artist -- he is too orthodox. He doesn't trust Archer. He supposes that the man's son, Kirei -- a fact that the Jedi Order would have been most reluctant to accept, though perhaps allowances could be made for laymen like the Church -- feels the same. And the Tower of the Force Adept Confederation, which is its rival and apparently another organization to which the wily Tokiomi and his Family belong would be cautious of the Dark Side as well. It is a good thing those clones, while useful, were not aware of this presence. It is ironic, when he thinks about it: given that it was his wealth that funded their creation to begin with so long ago now. 

There is something about the boy ... Something hidden behind those impressive shields. Tokiomi must have taught Kotomine Kirei well, or perhaps ... it was something else ... 

Archer puts that thought aside for the moment, moving Kotomine somewhere in between "threats" and "assets," leaning more towards the latter. He is still interested in how Tokiomi and his bloodline interact with the Living Force through their kyber crystals. The Tohsaka Head has even learned how to activate the energy of his crystal on his staff. Archer thinks about Tokiomi's request to teach him a few postures and techniques from his time. The Adept is confident, through the inherent need for his life energy, that he can control him at any time should his ... supposed dark influence get in the way of their working relationship. And Archer also knows about the fail safes, the alchemical structures implicit in the temporary materialization of his Servant's form: that should he attempt betrayal, his current Master could negate his actions through a command. 

Not unlike the chips he and his former Master installed into the Grand Army of the Republic.

Still, Archer has no need to resort to such crude measures. He and Tohsaka are gentlemen first, Servant and Master later. And wasn't it noblesse oblige to serve one's subjects, to educate them in order to better themselves and hence one's own reign? Archer can sense the darkness of the other Masters ... and Servants. For a few moments he thinks he can almost ... No. It is gone, if it was ever there. Still, he recalls the Clone Wars, and the death of his own apprentice.

His Padawan once said that he was a born fencer: looking for leverage, position, and advantage. Archer embodies precision and elegance. There is some time yet. This farce with one of the Assassins should do nicely for now. Tohsaka Tokiomi wants to ascend and retain his identity in the Netherworld of the Force. Fair enough, he could rediscover the secret in the World Between Worlds. One way or another, Archer will settle on the material galaxy. For now. In the meantime, Archer has some moments to spare, and prepare for the victory that was once denied him over a prize greater than anything he sought in life.

Time itself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a little challenging to think about who Archer would be for Tokiomi in this hybrid crossover universe, but honestly I think I made a good case. He is about precision, leverage, and advantage while using an opponent's own force against them through dexterity and having incredible long range Force capabilities. Also, Master and Servant really match each other while, at the same time, this arrangement does not preclude betrayal. 
> 
> So let us leave them to sip on their fine Alderaanian wine so we can get to our next pair, shall we?


	6. Chapter 6

Lancer lets the nobleman berate him. He has received far worse in his time.

Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald his ... new Master is furious, though Lancer knows all too well that a lot of it doesn't even have to do with him. No. The Adept is furious that someone took his catalyst, his original catalyst, away from him. He fumes to his fiancee, Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, about how an errant apprentice of his, little more than a two-bit acolyte to his greatness, stole his property and ran to Lothal for the War Between Worlds. 

It doesn't take Lancer long to realize just what kind of people his Master and fiancee are. They are Force-sensitive, and born into Clans based on Coruscant. He has been to Coruscant, back when he ... lived. Kayneth has a considerable amount of power and most likely a high concentration of midichlorians. The Force Adept of the El-Melloi Clan mastered the power of Illusion, even some limited astral projection, and can instigate healing in himself, and others. But if there was one element of Kayneth that Lancer could respect, it was how he incorporated his Force abilities into the creation of technology: specifically fields, advanced droids, and artifacts with various applications. It was as though the man using the meditation that the ancient Jedi and Sith once utilized to construct the miniaturization technology in their lightsabers ... and used it to make other artifacts. In fact, Lancer suspects that with time Kayneth could even create and record enough Holocrons to genuinely contain knowledge worth maintaining.

Unfortunately, in addition to the fact that his Master relies entirely too much on his Force abilities and not nearly as much on physicality or martial training -- making it clear to Lancer that should his powers and techniques be neutralized in battle, he would be utterly helpless, with even his Force-activated creations beyond his ability to control -- his arrogance is astounding. To think that his Master, his former Master, believed he had been overconfident back in his day. 

Kayneth wishes to access the World Between Worlds not to gain ascension, or knowledge, or power but to prove his superiority to his Clan and the Confederation of Force Adepts and nobility of which he is a prominent part. He simply desires, whenever he talks about it, to peer in upon space and time whenever he so feels. It is a large conquest, granted, but aside from gaining ultimate power, Kayneth has no plans for it. He simply wants to be remembered as the one who won, and proved to everyone that the Force is determined by the amount of midichlorians in one's bloodstream, and bloodline. Bloodline and family are important to Kayneth, if only to show off his pedigree. No more, and no less. 

Lancer thinks that a man such as this having all of these abilities and resources is a waste of sentient space. He is, for all of his power and skill, a disgrace of a Force Adept, even by Jedi standards of austerity: which is hilarious given how much Lancer still hates their kind. One would think with the way Kayneth denounced the Jedi as slaves to the Force, as slaves to history, he and Master would get along better. But somehow he hates Kayneth even more.

It doesn't help that Kayneth keeps calling him little more than an Assassin. No. Lancer fought many so-called assassins before. If anything, he wouldn't be surprised to fight the Brothers and Sisters of the Inquisitorius again as Assassins in this War. Such demeaning work was about their level. But Lancer knows the truth. He recalls the slagged ruins of a lightsaber half that Kayneth retrieved, how reluctant he was to hand it back to his Servant. It was just a flicker behind his shields, but even a non-Force sensitive could see Kayneth was over-compensating. He was afraid. 

Afraid of Lancer.

Obviously, the Adept hadn't planned to summon another potentially more powerful Force-sensitive, certainly not one well-versed in the forbidden Dark Side of the Force, but he had to compensate to deal with the theft of his last relic so late into the game. This is why Kayneth went out of his way to mention the biological safeguards implanted into his materialized form. This is why he showed Lancer his riches and resources. His power. The fool didn't understand that Lancer had seen, and sometimes even possessed, more than this. That he had been trained by the most powerful man in the galaxy to exterminate those such as Kayneth like the bloated insects that they truly were. 

Still, even though Lancer can to some extent absorb the life forces of other beings, he knows that it is easier to just have the Force connection to his Master to remain in his existence. He is, in other words, a glorified organic holographic extension of an overly complicated Holocron system made by primitives. But Lancer can't complain too much. He has to admit that he missed being able to feel his legs again, to having a lower half once more. The memory of that injury still burns through him, but he has far loftier goals now. 

The truth is that Lancer had long evolved past his original role as an assassin to his former Master. He had controlled criminal organizations, the same ones he once destroyed. He still recalls caches of credits and items spread throughout the galaxy that he suspects no one has found yet. 

But what ultimately damns Kayneth is when Lancer finds out the truth. He had been summoned by Kayneth, but there was something odd and distorted by their makeshift Force-bond: a bond between a Force-sensitive Master and their projected astral Servant made approximate flesh.

And he realizes that his bond is actually with Sola.

The other Adept hates Kayneth as much as he does, perhaps even more. She comes from a prominent Clan, who passed her up to be the Head of her Family for an incompetent, spineless brother. She was the one who apparently told her fiancee about him, about the location of his weapon, and bullied him into summoning him: playing on his arrogance and berating him for being afraid of a galactic bogeyman third to another. Surely, the great Lord El-Melloi could manage a Lancer like him, a manifestation of even the Dark Side, through his considerable power and will?

It doesn't take much to stoke that form of hubris. Lancer has always found that hatred can unite different factions, and different people as well as greed. Sola must realize that if she becomes his Master, he can help her achieve the greatness her Family squandered on another, to take the World Between Worlds and give her an opportunity to better her station and power. Sola is also a healer: and even more proficient support in some ways than her would-be husband.

It wouldn't take much. Lancer smiles. He can already see it. First, Sola will goad his coward of a Master into using his resources against their foes. Even Lancer can utilize some his inventions, especially his Liquid Metal, to reinforce his own body. And when the time is right, Lancer will ignite his newly repaired double-bladed lightsaber blade. 

Yellow eyes mixed with blood shine from his red and black horned face. If anything else, if nothing else from the mistakes in his life, Lancer has learned to be patient. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. This one was a bit of a harder sell, but I can see this Lancer exploiting this volatile relationship in another way compared to the original Zero Lancer. Of course, it would change a few other coming dynamics in another world, but well ... change is life. And it can be fun under the right circumstances.


	7. Chapter 7

Waver Velvet has no idea what else's got himself into by the time he summons his Servant on Lothal.

He has used his mind trick, and it just barely affects the family that he's staying with. But the Adept is getting better at it. As he told his former instructor, back at the Tower on Coruscant, it isn't one's bloodline and midichlorians that matter as it is one's skill in understanding the Living and the Cosmic Force. The development or attraction of midichlorians, depending on one's studies happened in Waver's Clan two generations ago: leaving him to earn his way into the Tower -- the creation of the Confederation of Adept Clans -- and learn as many Force techniques as scholastic study could allow. 

His Clan had barely wanted him to study or further his use of the Force beyond simple precognition or telekinesis. But Waver wanted more. Unfortunately, the Force-training had always been deeply coveted by all Adepts, and especially the lost Jedi Order of old. Sometimes, even now, Waver wonders what his life would have been like if according to the old records he dug up he had been taken at infancy or six years of age the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, made into the former Imperial Palace, and then rendered into so many other things besides before the Tower took control of the site and its powerful Force nexus. It is a site fully contested between the Church of the Force and the Confederation's Tower to this very day -- each one desiring the last resting place of the Jedi Order and its relics, to be the rightful inheritors of such -- while remaining fairly low key and in hiding from the mundane species of the galaxy. 

Kayneth and the other older Clans would have others believe that people like Waver wouldn't have even been considered as fully recognized Force Adepts, never mind prospective Jedi Knights. It is when Kayneth deleted and destroyed his datapad with his Treatise right in front of the entire lecture hall that he made his fateful decision.

Waver isn't sure how his precognition, generally quite short-sighted or range, showed him a relic being shipped by one of Lord El-Melloi's acolytes and that feeling of heading into battle in triumph with a larger than life figure and the site of the planet of Lothal. All Waver knows is that he managed to convince the acolyte he was one of Lord El-Melloi's apprentices, retrieve the catalyst -- an ancient holographic painting of an old Mandalorian War -- and took the nearest ship off of Coruscant to Lothal after slicing into and reading a restricted file in the Tower database about the World Between Worlds Rite created by the Tohsaka, the Makiri, and the Einzbern Clans. If there is one thing that Waver excelled in, aside from having people underestimate him, it was the ability to put two and two together and through deductive reasoning figure out the logic behind another person's actions: even an arrogant, self-centred Lord like Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald. 

The young Adept utilizes fresh Loth-rat blood outside of his "foster family's" compound and entrails to create the summoning circle: this crude attempt at a portal into the World Between Worlds. Unlike most of the Masters Waver suspects, he knows he doesn't need his own blood or that of sentient beings to utilize the midichlorians within. Sometimes the simplest methods work, especially when they are all that one can use. 

He isn't sure who he will summon. Would it be a powerful Mandalorian warrior? A Jedi artist or hero of that war? An operative from the First Galactic Empire?

What Waver isn't expecting, however, is a blue-skinned man with glowing red eyes. He is a Chiss. Waver knows this because his Family, until they came to Coruscant due to a vast change in fortunes that were most likely the result of exploiting some newly developed Force sensitivity in the first generation, lived on a world in what is still called Wild Space, near the Unknown Regions: and the legends of the Chiss followed them somewhat. 

The Chiss is puzzled, Waver can tell, but his features remain neutral and unmoved. In clear Basic, he asks Waver a few questions. The young Adept is even more puzzled as most of the queries are things that the Three Clans claimed the World Between Worlds and their techno-organic Holocron technology making up the potential portal should have already answered by downloading the data into the Legendary Spirit's being. Waver tells him what year it is, that he doesn't know where Csilla is, that the Jedi Order, and the Empire have long since been gone, and that Lothal -- the world in which the War Between Wars is founded -- is independent now with no Republic or other galactic government covering it. He tells the Chiss that the power he is feeling is the Force-bond he's made with him to keep him manifest in this galaxy, and that as part of the Force he can manifest other parts of his life -- as something remembered by the Force and all living sentient beings -- into reality. 

It takes Waver a while to realize that these questions aren't so much for the Chiss' benefit, as they are for his own. He can tell that the Chiss is viewing him like the holograph he stole, reading him like a datapad and recording all of his reactions and movements as they interact. It is eerie and unsettling. Waver doesn't detect the Force within the Chiss, aside from the power he is feeding him. 

The Chiss says something about how it is strange that he is back on this world after so long. He says he remembers being ... lost somewhere. And when he regards Waver, he says he reminds him of a boy he once knew.

When Waver shouts at him, telling him he is _a man_ , and that he will prove himself in this conflict to seize the portal to the World Between Worlds, the Chiss doesn't seem to react, only nodding slightly. He explains that he isn't Force-sensitive, but he recalls the Temple of Lothal, a Jedi Temple built to the Ones or by them, before it was destroyed and how seems as though the Three Clans are trying to rebuild it with the life energies of those Legendary Spirits whom the galaxy and the generations have invested much psychic energy within. He recalls, briefly, how he had known little of the Force until he met a few figures in his life: some children among his own people, a Jedi Knight himself, a large entity on Atollon, then a half-trained apprentice, a Sith Lord .... and one boy. 

Once Waver finds the presence of mind to ask his Servant his name, the other tells him it is unpronounceable in Basic and that he believed, based on the information downloaded into his mind, that he should be referred to as Rider. When Waver asks him where his ship is, the Chiss actually smiles at him slightly: stating his resources will come once they have further Intelligence. And when Rider starts this particular round of inquiry, beginning with why Waver has entered this War, the young Adept can hardly wait to give his response: telling the Chiss that he is here to disprove his elders and the other Adept Clans wrong by showing them that one can win the War Between Worlds by sheer skill and merit alone ... that bloodline means nothing.

He feels uncomfortable as Rider analyzes him, his red eyes somehow feeling cold and dispassionate. All the Chiss says in response is that Waver has much to learn and that, even so, he reminds him a great deal of the boy whom got him lost. Then, when he notices the holo painting outside the circle, Rider asks for it. It is only when Waver hands the holographic landscape of an ancient war to this Legendary Spirit, who stands relaxed but with a militaristic bearing while lecturing Waver on the merits of understanding art -- and the art of one's enemies -- that the young Force Adept's life begins to change forever: that his education has only just begun. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that's right: I went there.
> 
> MissKitsune08 and friends, you are welcome. Waver Velvet does have a very analytical and deductive mind. His canon Servant hadn't had mystical abilities either when he was alive for the most part. But both are famed military commanders in their universes. 
> 
> And this is where the fun begins.
> 
> ETA: I also had to change some details of this due to ... well, Thrawn: Alliances.


	8. Chapter 8

The World Between Worlds, a nexus not unlike the planet where midichlorians originate and the Force Priestesses commune, or even Mortis with its lost Ones has something of its own awareness of events. It is, like many worlds after all -- and some more than others -- part of the Force. 

However, there is something else inside of the World Between Worlds, haunting its midnight surfaces, staining its silvery roads, hiding in the shadows of the portals that it cannot exit or enter. It, because applying gender to the aspect now after all of this time would be somewhat misleading given everything that has happened to it, waits. It writhes without form, or control. The darkness it represents can't leave this place, but it casts an outward reflection, or an echo. There are many places in the galaxy, and in other galaxies that have been explored yet, or given hyperspace lanes, or even thought of by the citizens and denizens of those places. 

It hadn't always been in this transitional place, this crossroads between space and time. Sometimes it remembers. It remembers the person that created it ... It remembers not being ... alone. Once, it had a sibling. That sibling was destroyed when it ... held a Dagger. And when its progenitor, its ... Father died, stabbing himself with that same Dagger, it recalls a blue blade cutting through its abdomen ...

And nothing more.

It remembers, vaguely, the wielder of that blade and how ... it ... he could have changed everything. And then it recalls another figure, a ... boy coming into this place and how he could have changed the future, bringing the echoes of them ... of its family and itself back. Even then, it still existed beyond space and time and reality ... waiting. Waiting for anything, anyone to call on it again ...

Then the Third War Between Worlds. An alchemical construct attempted to break the rules of the Force itself, bringing it ... bringing him back in physical form. He was mad. He was utterly insane with grief and fury. The Well of the Dark Side suffused him ... still covers it ... But his body, an organic projection in the form of the irregular Servant Avenger, couldn't contain the energy. Another entity, a Legendary Spirit -- an ascended being -- destroyed that form too and sent the creature that was once the Force-wielder Son back into the World Between Worlds. 

Unfortunately, the entity that was Son still retained his consciousness. He hadn't been banished back to the Netherworld of the Force, as he had been with his Father and sister, known as Daughter. He wasn't just an echo of a greater mind here in the World Between Worlds. He is the only one that can retain himself, somewhat, that can almost recall ...

But then Avenger, when Son dies again, finally, and releases all the selfishness, anger, sorrow, grief, rage, and hatred into the World Between Worlds. It taints it, utterly and completely. It sees all of space and time and reality itself as a sham, a farce and it wants it to end. It is no longer Son, but what Son personified at the nadir of his power: the Bogan, the Dark Side of the Force. When the Three Clans open the gates again, rudimentary replacements to the Temple that once stood in the material plane, only a little bit of the Bogan's power comes through: allowing specific entities -- Legendary Spirits -- through that should have otherwise remained in Chaos. 

Yet this time, unlike the last two War Between Worlds, where there had been no Vessels, no symbolic carriers of the Chosen One, the Bogan feels that this time the energy is gathering properly. The others had dissipated back into the Netherworld, but not Avenger. Not the Bogan. The Bogan is creating its own Netherworld here. It is lonely and greedy. It is hungry. It wants company. It wants its power, its magma and liquid fire from the Well of the Dark Side to go properly though the World Between Worlds, to the Wellspring of Life ... to spread through all of it. To share itself with everything. But first, it will entertain guests. And then ... then it has been so long, and it wants to see other worlds. It wants to help people find other worlds too. It just wants to give people what they want. All the power that they want. Everything that they want.

At any cost. 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only now, at the end, do you understand that not all people die when they are killed.
> 
> That being said, this is the end of my May the Fourth Challenge to myself -- as well as my first-ever crossover fic -- for an idea that I had for some time and didn't have the impetus to write out or publish. For something so ad hoc, I like how it turned out. And, who knows, maybe there will be a Fate/Stay Night version of this at some point. 
> 
> May the Fourth and the Fifth -- and hell, even the Sixth -- be with you. Always.


	9. I: Extra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I was going to end it at Chapter Eight. However, I really like the dynamic I had in mind for the some of the Master-Servant pairings that just didn't quite ... make it. I talked about some of these potential pairings in the other Notes at the end of each chapter, but I decided to add some supplemental.
> 
> Think of it, if you'd like, as stories for Revenge of the Sixth. Enjoy this one. This particular Servant demanded to be heard.

Berserker finds himself returned to the galaxy. 

He is in, for lack of a better word, a cesspool. He actually recalls this place. In fact, he had seen his opponent, his former apprentice disappear precisely over this nexus as the Sith Temple crumbled all around them. It had reminded him of the mysteries that the Force still contained, even after the death of his former Order, even after he helped to slaughter them all ... 

It is Malachor. These ... vermin summoned him, ripping him from his well deserved rest in the Netherworld of the Force, his pain finally over, to become a tool for their struggles for the World Between Worlds. It's only fitting in way, in this place that is the home of these ... pathetic Adepts that will soon become their tomb like the Sith that they sought to emulate, given that his former apprentice's disappearance had been his first clue that something, not unlike Mortis, still existed: a thing that was a threat, and a potential asset ...

Rage pulsates through him, his voice roaring hollowly through his helmet -- this vestige of his living prison -- as he clenches his fist. The cackling old man, resembling his former Master far too much, clutches at his throat. Berserker's thoughts spread from the thing masquerading as a man, just a collection of Dark Side-created alchemical symbiotes -- parasites -- and his fury infects the other creatures simmering in the Pit, rupturing all of them. There is one scream from multiple inhuman throats generated by pretensions towards Sith alchemy as the thing that calls itself Matou Zouken, once Zolgen Makiri, dies slowly and horrifically. 

Berserker hates everything about this place. Its heart festers like the shrine under the hypocritical Temple on Coruscant where his Master created his Palace, and it burns like spiteful fire of his former Castle on Mustafar. He doesn't want to be back here. He had been freed. It had finally been over for him. Perhaps he hadn't deserved his liberty, even in death, but it had been his, and he had handed over his failure of a life to allow better people to improve the mess that shaped him, and that he left behind. For a few moments, after Zolgen Makiri dies, he hears the worm's last thought ...

_Justeaze ..._

It is a strange impression combined with an emotion, of love and regret. Berserker, with his great power -- even as limited and curtailed as it is by his current incarnation -- suddenly sees all of it. The Jedi Temple on Lothal, built or influenced by the Ones that had almost commanded centuries ago on Mortis. The birth, death, and rebirth of the Jedi Order and the Sith, and constant groups of Force Adepts on the dregs of both for hundreds of years. All of the efforts of his teachers, of his children, of his son's students, all gone ... Then the Adepts coming together. The Makiri, are what the Matou used to be. The Makiri allied with the Einzbern Clan to create something of a grand techno-organic structure sensitive to the Force over the ruins of the Temple on Lothal: the site of the portal to the World Between Worlds. The Makiri Clan had been Adepts of the Light, back then: seeking to restore the knowledge of space-time, and use it to bring eternal peace to this war-torn galaxy. Zolgen Makiri had done this, had extended his life out of love for this ideal and for the former Head of the Einzbern Clan ... who sacrificed her alchemically-altered body, the result of an nth degree of the Healing Arts ... to help become this Great Holocron that needed Force-sensitive Masters to actualize other archetypes throughout space-time: paragons called Legendary Spirits.

The World Between Worlds opened temporary portals and Berserker had seen it open in the Netherworld. He had retained his consciousness beyond death with the help of his first Masters, his friends and mentors ... A call from the Force, from a man, was sent out ... He reached out to it, knowing what it meant ...

His would-be ... Master lies on the ground in front of him, but he is crawling. He's crawling towards the Pit. Berserker can sense incredible fear emanating from the man's deformed body. He is pitiful. Somehow, through their Force-bond -- influenced by the World Between Worlds in a degraded sense -- he knows what happened to this man's family. They started out with good intentions, helping to make this Ritual, but they had been dying off. They tried to rediscover the teachings of Darth Plagueis, and fell to the Dark Side of the Force. In the end, they also degraded and lost everything. 

But Berserker notices that Matou Kariya isn't afraid of death. He is afraid of Berserker coming to the Pit: to hurt something in the Pit ...

Berserker looms forward and sees ... the child.

She is covered with the remnants of the parasites. They were ... they were making her into a Vessel. A parody of the carrier of the Chosen One. His fury erupts again, wanting to destroy every part of this abomination when the man gets back up. He stumbles, and falls onto his knees. Matou offers his neck. His head. The crimson bloodshine of his lightsaber comes back to life with a _snap-hiss_. He feels the boy's thoughts. He senses regret for leaving a woman behind, thinking he did to save her and her children. He feels his rage towards Zolgen Makiri whose life he just euthanized. But above all, he feels sadness and love towards the girl in the Pit covered in dead parasites. 

The girl is still alive, but her eyes are dead. Berserker recalls the Younglings hiding in the High Council Chamber. He sees a young girl struggling against interrogation and mind-probe. And then he recalls a young man, desperate, furious against the galaxy and the Force itself, wanting to save his wife ... willing to do anything, commit any atrocity to save her and their unborn child ... All for nothing. 

And then he sees Matou Kariya's thoughts fall towards the Adept Clan that abandoned this girl: that didn't know the extent of this Clan's corruption, or wanted to know. It had been an attempt to save them, to not create a rival in their Clan's future, to not sow internal dissent ... 

Berserker understands the fury of a father wanting to save the person that they love, at any cost, while destroying themselves in the process ...

He deactivates his lightsaber blade. Then he reaches out with his power and destroys the last remnant of Zolgen Makiri in the girl, recalling his old Master's lessons about the Sith's attempts at a limited immortality. Matou Kariya and Berserker look at one another. Finally, Berserker accepts the Force bond. He remembers now why he accepted this call. It isn't completely clear and his mind and the limitless knowledge and wisdom he gained is mostly lost ... But perhaps he can use this power, the darkness, to fight the darkness -- to prevent something worse from getting at the World Between Worlds -- or go back to make sure his past self doesn't damn the people he loves, to show him what he will become if he does ... Or maybe, he is just an aspect, a lost part of another man that shed him in a funeral pyre on a forest world, that recognizes the potential development of another monster in Matou and simply wants to help him achieve his vengeance, or become the cautionary tale that he needs to change his life now before it is too late.

He can already tell his Master doesn't have long to live. He can sense that the girl's Clan will not have her back such as it is. Something needs to change. A new order must be made. This part of him, the part that has ultimately become Berserker, knows the gateway to World Between Worlds such as it was made by the Three Clans is broken and tainted by the Dark Side. Perhaps he is the best it can do for this man: to summon a villain instead of a hero, the personification of the greatest fear of the galaxy.

The ultimate cautionary tale of what happens when you sacrifice everything for power. 

And Berserker plans on visiting some of these lessons on the girl's biological father and perhaps, just perhaps, he might be able to use the World Between Worlds to find himself again, the other, better parts of him. Maybe, in his quest to make a home for his new Master and keep him and the girl safe, he can find his own way home again. 


	10. II: Extra

Waver Velvet hadn't come into the War Between Worlds thinking that he would become part of a Family.

He'd had a Clan once. The Velvets, having some Force-sensitivity, had decided to die out comfortably: with only him going to the Tower on Coruscant. He'd never really had any connection with his parents, or the small amount of relatives he'd ever known. There had been even less opportunity for attachments at the Tower with the dynastic struggles of Adept Clans so obsessed with quantifying the number of midichlorians within a bloodline as opposed to examining the achievements of its individual students. And this isn't even going into his instructor: a cold, arrogant man who was used to being obeyed, and crushing those under him with the privilege that Tower Dogma provided. 

When he had used the loth-rats' blood to summon Rider from a rudimentary portal from the World Between Worlds, he understood what his so-called teacher had been looking for. He had looked for a Legendary Spirit -- a Servant -- that when bonded by the Force and his power, would follow orders to a T. Literally. Like the visor of the helmet that he stole from his acolyte.

And when he realized that Rider wasn't alone: that when he could summon his drop ship he had all of his brothers from the 501st at his command, at last Waver -- an Adept not belonging to an ancient Force-sensitive bloodline or tradition -- had a chance to defeat all Masters and their Servants: especially if they were Adepts. 

CT-7567 had been gruff, yet nothing but kind to him. Unfortunately, Waver wasn't powerful enough to always feed him the energy he required. But this had been remedied by Rider when he took Waver back to his "foster family" and introduced himself as his Uncle. Waver had to use some mind tricks to get the elderly couple to believe that CT-7567 had been from the other side of his family, the one not related to their true son. But they warmed up to him: to the point where they really liked his caf. This allowed Waver to be able to strategize with his Servant without too much strain, or even keeping him in astral form for too long. CT-7567 confessed that remaining as energy made him feel uncomfortable, reminding him of a time being bodiless in a cloning cylinder, surrounded by fluid, not able to move or exist. 

Waver admits to himself that he didn't always treat Rider well: always giving him orders, always barking them, feeling insecure about them. And Rider made no bones about putting him in his place: stating that power didn't matter on a battlefield, only experience. He'd almost taken it personally, almost thought about using Rider's fail-safe ... But for the first time in his life, Waver felt disgusted with himself over the thought, wondering what kind of man he would be to do that to a thinking, feeling being: even an incarnated spirit from the Netherworld of the Force.

After that, this unspoken lack of action -- this decision made -- their relationship improved. Rider took him out to the cantinas of Lothal drinking. He taught him how to live in the wilds and hunt his own food. Rider even showed Waver how to properly use a blaster, and the rudiments of hand to hand. And even ... how to deal with other Force Adepts without having to use the Force. His rationale was that if he was going to have a Commander, that a Commander needed to be able to defend and take care of themselves so that he, as a man under his command, would have a chance at success: at survival.

And every day, as they continued to face other Servants and Masters, scouting them out, gaining more information about them, seeing horrifying sights and enjoying the world outside of their experiences, Waver found himself getting closer to his Servant, his soldier, his ... friend. By the time Rider trusted him enough, gained enough energy through the vastly delicious meals that the clone captain consumed, he showed him his brothers -- the 501st in the drop ship that was his Reality Marble with its naked Twi'lek women spray painting and teeth and other men, looking like their captain, but different from him clapping Waver on the back, and teaching him more about weapons training, combat, recon, war stories, drinking, and Mando'a swear words to last him several life times.

Waver realized that the drop ship -- Rider's Reality Marble -- is a rudimentary portal to a place in the World Between Worlds: created from the devotion of his brothers, a strength of blood, sweat, and tears that had transcended the false ideal to which they had been created, superseded by their dedication to war and brotherhood. Rider told him, from the Intel downloaded into his mind as he put it, that they could have all been just as easily summoned as Assassin because of how they were created to destroy the Jedi Order so long ago. The regret on Rider's face, and those of his brothers, is palpable: even as he admits he never attacked a General. He tells Waver that he reminds him of a boy he knew once, when he was grizzled and old with his remaining brothers, and of a girl who had been an excellent warrior and an earnest heart. 

Eventually, the War Between Worlds winds down to the final confrontations. Waver has long known Rider's wish: to use the World Between Worlds to go back in time and save all of his brothers from slavery. He knows now, that Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald never deserved them: a sentiment Rider shares, comparing the man to a fallen Jedi Master that attempted to betray them to the Confederacy. Waver also knows that he didn't deserve them either. It is when they present him with his own honorary kit, small like that of the friends that Rider used to have, that he decides to relinquish the fail safes upon them: ordering the clones to win and take the World Between Worlds for themselves and themselves only. To free them forever.

But when Rider, all of Rider -- he and his brothers -- call him _vod'ika_ , to ask him to fight by their side, he can't refuse them. He won't. 

That day, before they face Caster and his twisted designs -- surrounding him with the tactics they had been taught to destroy the Jedi they once respected, using them against what they now know is a Sith Lord -- he rides with their ship and go all out. 

And it breaks his heart when Caster destroys them, all of them and Rider -- who he calls by his real name, not his title, or his serial number, but his chosen name -- throws him off the vessel, telling him to live, to keep a part of them alive. Even when a compulsion takes Rider's mind and he terminates himself with his blaster, Waver keeps falling, keeps running, tears and snot coursing down his face, only running because he had been ordered to live by his trusted subordinate, his friend. 

His brother.

He doesn't know why Caster let him live that day, so long ago now. Perhaps it had been what he read of Dun Moch: the tradition of humiliating and breaking the spirit of the enemy. Perhaps he sensed that an Adept like Waver had been no threat and possessed no Force-bond with any Servant, that the World Between Worlds would never answer his call at that point. Maybe he wanted the fear of his presence to spread, and he fed off of that fear like a fine wine.

But the joke is on Caster. After the War, Waver Velvet returns to the Tower. He takes care of all of his work and equipment with the pragmatism instilled into him by Rider. He works on his exercises, and hones himself. He trains hard. He trains for every one of his brothers, lost in time, lost in that pointless conflict, and lives louder and more passionately for it. He takes stock of his surroundings and uses them to his advantage. And he finds other like-minded Adepts, proving his worth, even joining his former teacher's Clan to restore his knowledge, but doing it only to advance his own work ethic.

By the time he is Lord El-Melloi II, he still isn't as strong in the Force as he wanted to be, but he has gained so much more. He might be part of the El-Melloi Clan, but he knows -- forever now -- as he attempts to do his part to change the Tower and unite the Adept Clans in a way that never requires the World Between Worlds, to prove himself and improve the galaxy through merit and hard work -- that he, Waver Velvet, will always be a part of the 501st. They will always be his real family. His brothers.

He will always be _vode_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like the 501st deserved better. So much better. And I think, in the end, that Waver wanted to become a part of something greater. I borrowed a bit of terminology from what is now Legends, but screw it. I'm already melding two realities together. It works here.


	11. III: Extra

Saber accompanies Irisviel von Einzbern as they stroll along through the grasslands of Lothal. Given what his life had been like, long ago, it isn't unusual. Among other things, Jedi were supposed to have been negotiators and ambassadors to Republic notables, politicians, and dignitaries. This would not have been the first time that a Jedi Knight had to be a bodyguard for a member of nobility who by their very nature was in danger simply by venturing out into the rest of the galaxy. 

But this is, as per usual for Jedi in his experience and those of the past, less than an ordinary situation. After leaving the public transport to the planet -- posing as anonymous tourists -- and their private hovercar, they were supposed to go right to the Clan Manse. It hadn't taken much for Saber to mind trick most people into forgetting who they are, or even recalling what they looked like should anyone have the presence of mind to ask. Even so, he kept his presence under tight control, only using small tendrils of the Force to do what had to be done: no more, and no less. The lightsaber cylinder that was used by the Clan to call him from the World Between Worlds, the remnants of it, rests uneasy on his belt. He has his own lightsaber, lost to him at the remainder of his life, to call upon should they need it: even if he is hesitant in being the first one to activate it. 

He strokes his beard, much like he recalls his first mentor doing, as he looks at their surroundings. It has been many centuries since the Empire, since the Rebellion, but Lothal has recovered well from its previous industrial pollution under Imperial occupation: an accomplishment that is one the few things to which he had very little to do with. That been the doing of the Rebel cell known as the Spectres, an ironic name that doesn't escape him given what he is now.

To be honest, Saber doesn't even know what he is doing here.

He does know, through the Cosmic aspect of the Force -- a tidbit of knowledge he fought tooth and claw for when he had to essentially rebuild an entire culture from almost nothing -- _how_ he is here. It is ... different in various realities. When his ancient Master taught him about visions -- how the Force basically showed people the past, present, and alternative paths -- he didn't understand that there were entire planes of possibility with which the Force was connected. 

A lot of the time, the story -- such as it is -- was ultimately similar. The Jedi Order had phases of existence and decline, in some realities more than others. The Sith and their imitators had been the same, except even more extreme and rapid. As they were gone, Force-traditions would rise in their place, attempting to gather what scraps they could, much like he had when he had first been alive, and rebuild schools of thought and durasteel to train those that the Force had chosen to wield it. Sometimes it was Three Clans, such as in the case of the Tohsaka, the Makiri, and the Einzbern.

There were other permutations, of course: a series of different Rituals instead of one, or taking place in other points of space-time. Even the construction and purpose of the Ritual that would be called by some the War Between Worlds. Sometimes it was bio-engineering from denizens beyond the Outer Rim, from the Unknown Regions, that had infiltrated one galaxy and had been adapted through theft or cooperation to become something of the large Holocron that would generate a portal. Other times it was the remains of an ancient factory, far from Lothal and the rest of the galaxy, that had been slowly and painstakingly rebuilt: a place that could use the Force to construct practically anything which, as it turned out, had been more than merely ships and weapons. Other times, they were the remains of ancient civilizations that constructed their galaxy, or the scientist and philosopher predecessor organization to the Jedi and the Sith whose descendants attempted to rebuild the galaxy in their image. One reality even has it so that the life forces of archetypes can be channeled into reconstructing and accessing an entire interdimensional diary or journal of an ascended species of observer. 

Here, Saber knows that there was a world perhaps existing solely in Hyperspace that generated midichlorians: a theory almost lost from his time that took great precedence here. These Force Adepts and their Clans and traditions were judged and trained by how many midichlorians they had, how many generations of their bloodline that possessed them and, eventually, skill. They had even rediscovered Force detection blood tests, though not machines that could read their energy signatures. The Three Clans used all of this knowledge to reconstruct a portal on Lothal -- a vergence and a Temple -- that had sunk into the ground thanks to the Spectres. The Empire had wanted it. The Emperor had definitely wanted it. 

And now these Clans, with seven representatives and Legendary Spirits, also wanted access to the portal: to be master of all space-time.

Saber knows about Force spirits. He had been one. After wrestling with a lifetime of optimism, tragedy, doubt, and resolution -- attempting to reconcile his great power and responsibility and use it beyond the eternal cycle of violence that this galaxy had offered -- he had made his decision and drew on an archetype he had thought long lost to him: to inspire the next generation to fight the darkness. 

He understands wanting to end that cycle. His new Master, yet another attempting to keep vital information from him, was willing to commit the most gruesome and ruthless acts for what he believed to be "the greater good." Saber remembers hearing about and encountering Rebels just like that. He heard tales of Jedi that also started out their quest with good intentions ... before they fell to evil and suffering. He remembers one of them intimately ... and perhaps even two. 

Perhaps Emiya Kiritsugu doesn't understand him. Maybe he thinks of him as one-dimensional do-gooder who liked to preach about the inherent purity of the Light and the Force. If only the man knew ... Still, perhaps he misjudges the one called the Adept Slayer, similar to the Jedi Hunters he had heard stories about during the rise of the Empire. The man did, after all, make a point of summoning him on Crait: where his last appearance had been documented. 

And Saber was the one that accepted the call. He had done so several times having maintained his consciousness in the Netherworld. Sometimes he helped a former apprentice, and appeared to another. Space and time are not exactly linear to him anymore. Sometimes he has even arrived with his former Masters, and even his father in certain Rituals when they didn't commune with the Force. There was a time that Saber would have refused the call, or took it to use the portal to the World Between Worlds to go back in time and train someone else, someone more competent, to take up the mantle that he had failed to carry on: to let his younger self remain in peace, if not boredom, on a desert world with an aunt and uncle and friends that loved him. He would chosen to avoid despair, then.

But he knows himself too well for that. He would never have stayed still. That boredom would have driven him on, and the Force would not be thwarted. He had tried, and failed to do just that. And there is no way he would have avoided those droids. There is no way he would have left his sister and his brother in all but blood to their own designs, not after what happened thirty years after their victory ... 

And despite himself, he would definitely not repeat the mistake of attempting to kill that one particular student again.

It was something in Kiritsugu's heart that called him, something that he would vehemently deny if confronted with it. It was like his brother in law, except the hope and ideals he clung to made him more ruthless and more aloof instead of embracing his friends. Kiritsugu wants to save the galaxy. He has already taken many lives to do so. Saber can't judge him, especially after the lives he took in his own time. The man hates heroes, and Saber actually agrees with him: that it isn't fair or reasonable to expect individuals to represent what the galaxy should seek for themselves. Heroes are symbols that should be aspired to, but he was just a man. He still thinks that, even now, despite the way that people like Irisviel look up to him. 

It was Irisviel that kept him from changing his mind. He has seen her heart. It disgusts him that her Clan and the others expect her, as a sentient lifeform to become a makeshift portal for the World Between Worlds. There were some reasons why Sith alchemy, or Force alchemy had been restricted by the ancients. But he knows she is more than a construct and knows that her husband believes so too. Iri, as she wants him to call her, believes in her husband and their journey. She has been told about the outside world but had never seen it until now. Her husband had told her all about it, encouraging that sentience and awareness even when knowing where she will go ...

And that is why Saber told their driver to stop their hovercar so that Irisviel can see Lothal. So she can enjoy its ambient life energy. He saw the way she looked out the window and he knew.

Irisviel is one of those rare people that wants to help everyone. She reminds him of his sister in some ways, without too much of the fire. She wants to help Kiritsugu find peace. She wants to enjoy what is left of her life. 

She even wants to help Saber.

There is no blind belief in Irisviel as he had experienced from so many others. She truly and utterly believes in him: telling him it is the Will of the Force that he is here. Once, he might have believed it too, blindly. After, he would have avoided it and told the woman to stop believing in fairy tales. But now ... he sees what she fights for, what his real Master fights for ... And when he saw that little girl back at their compound on Hoth -- the same place where he almost died so young -- he realizes _who_ they fight for. 

Iri and her daughter remind him of another girl -- no, a young lady who offered his old lightsaber back to him: who wanted to know where she belonged, where they all believed. In the end, she wanted hope.

And Saber cannot reject that reaching out, that call, again. He just doesn't have the heart. He knows what he has to do now.

When a Loth-cat approaches them, in the wilds, on their way to the planet's shallow sea and evening comes upon them, Saber takes the time to commune with it, to let Irisviel pet and talk to it. He looks at her and her simple joy with fondness. He knows, even though he will have to fight, that it doesn't have to be gratuitous. He will face the Dark Side and deal with it if need be. And he is willing to spare Adepts, even fellow Spirits if they desire it. He is not afraid of another death. Saber already knows what that feels like. 

No. Saber is going to participate in this War Between Worlds. Because, as he had with his father before him, he will save his Master and this sweet woman that is his wife. He will save their child. He will protect the galaxy from the Dark Side and those that would dare misuse a power like the World Between Worlds.

And perhaps, as he looks down at the old lightsaber he has yet to repair, its kyber crystal still intact, he will be able to use his Legend once again. Perhaps, when the time is right, he will take his Noble Phantasm up and remind the galaxy of a New Hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is it for now, my friends. 
> 
> I am amazed with how this got and what it turned into. I imagine that stuff can be done with mixing the Nasuverse with Star Wars Legends instead of canon. It would have made choosing Archer and Lancer a little easier. 
> 
> But this deserved to be the end of this miniseries. It is a good place to stop. Perhaps one day I will apply this fusion to Fate/Stay Night. We shall see. Thanks for reading.


End file.
